


Remember When

by FactoryKat



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Anders Appreciation Week, Circle Mages, Circle of Magi, Dreams, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Kinloch Hold (Dragon Age), M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Memories, Mischief, Named Surana (Dragon Age), Past Anders/Karl Thekla
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 04:51:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21030539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FactoryKat/pseuds/FactoryKat
Summary: Working late at the clinic again, Anders drifts off and remembers one of the more fond moments within the walls of Kinloch Hold.





	Remember When

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Pro-Anders Week on Tumblr. Day 1 - Life in the Circle

Hot wax dripped from the single candle on his desk, only barely cooled with a heavy exhale chilled by the touch of magic. Lips still tingling, deep-set eyes tore themselves away from the flickering flame of the malformed thing, burning itself into contorted shapes. The smaller it became, the dimmer the glow cast across the scattered pages of patient notes and the less light by which there was to work. Not that he was concentrating terribly hard anyhow. The curtain of night had long since fallen, leaving Anders to realize he had spent too many hours hunched over his desk yet again. 

Hawke would be concerned, no doubt, and he could already picture the man's worried frown and expressive blue eyes full of woe.

Still, he did not remove himself from his seat. Anders cast a long and wistful glance across the dark and distinctly empty clinic towards the high-set windows frosting over with the threat of Winter rapidly approaching. The bite in the air hailed the end of summer, a changing of seasons that never failed to usher in the familiar old melancholy that too often took up residence within his thoughts.

A buzzing, an urging even, in his subconscious, fought against the notion and pushed him to continue writing. Anders, too tired to argue with Justice for once, he reached to wet the quill once more, but it was his unfocused haste that knocked the glass vial of ink right off the desk.

Shattering glass was one of those unmistakable sounds. It was a noise that caught one's breath, set one's pulse racing and brought with it images of glittering fragments, or in this case -

_ Small feet hitting the stone floors... _

_ Childish cackling - followed by a piercing squeal and a slew of delighted giggles. Anders had tuned out the commotion, having written it off as nothing worth his attention until the sounds carried into the dormitory and right towards him. A small figure darted in and - before Anders could even get his bearings - dove right beneath the bed upon which he had been so comfortably perched. Even for her insignificant size, the elf's (he's sure he saw pointed ears somewhere in the blur) body formed a bulge beneath the mattress and set him off balance.  _

_ "Andraste's tits! What is going on? Surana?" _

_ More laughter erupted from somewhere underneath the shaking bed as he climbed out of it awkwardly.  _

_ Of bloody course, it was her. _

_ For someone like him: tall, gangly, more limbs than anything, getting down on all fours was some feat. He somehow managed long enough to crane his neck to the side, ponytail flopping across his face as he snuck a peek under his bunk. Sure enough, scrunched up into a sniggering ball was his young elven friend and fellow mage - well apprentice. She hadn't yet gone through her harrowing after all. _

_ "Hi, Anders!" She squeaked, in between giggles. Glassy brown eyes, nearly black as pitch, peeked out from the shadows with mischief brimming within them. That figured. _

_ "Nell. So, mind telling me what you're doing under there?" _

_ The laughing ceased far too suddenly for his liking, and those same eyes widened to the size of sovereigns. In the dark, the twitch of the elf's long tapered ears was only just visible. He supposed if he had ears like that, they'd twitch too when a faint voice in the halls filtered in through the open door of his dormitory, a voice that sounded less than pleased judging by the strained timbre and raised pitch. _

_ Surana's small hands flew to her mouth to stifle the snickers that threatened to give away her hiding spot. _

_ Anders snorted and sighed as he rolled onto his back, a grin pulled the corners of his lips back. "Dare I ask what you've done and to who?"  _

_ Nell had arrived at the Circle only a year or two after he had become established, a young elf from the Denerim Alienage who had just come into her magic at the tender age of nine years old. Even then, she had been a spritely thing with plenty of wild-eyed enthusiasm to explore her gifts and seek a better life than the one she left behind. He hadn't the heart to tell her then, that she would have been better off in the alienage, not especially when she took to him almost immediately as apparently someone to be trusted. Anders supposed he should have been flattered, but- _

_ "How far is too far for you, hm? How. Far?" The voice bellowed from around the corner as it drew nearer, and Anders realized it was one of the new Senior Enchanters.  _

_ Palming his face, he chuckled to himself. "Surana, what did I tell you?" _

_ The elf had, at some point, turned over onto her back to mirror him, complete with a grin on her tiny face. "Give the new Enchanters at least a week before I start pranking them?"  _

_ He watched Nell's smile grow, threatening to stretch from the tip of one ear to the other. "Well, that, and the best hiding spot is under Karl's bed, not mine. I'm the first person they come looking for, remember?" _

_ "YOU!" The Enchanter exclaimed, as he emerged into the room, his rusty red hair in disarray and barrel chest heaving with each labored breath. The man's round face, flushed with scarlet, was twisted into a scowl. _

_ Anders only heard a quiet gasp and the soft 'pop's of displaced air somewhere off to his right when he turned his focus to the older mage. A transfer from some other Circle, he vaguely recalled, but all other details escaped him at present. _

_ Bearing teeth with a grin surely expected of him, Anders saluted the man from where he still lay prone on the ground.  _

_ "Evening, Poncey! Fancy seeing you in the apprentice dorms tonight. Here for a slumber party?" _

_ Indignance did not become Poncey, Anders thought as russet brows knitted together, and pouty lips puffed out even further. He wasn't a tall bloke, but then Anders had surpassed the majority of his peers long ago in height. What he lacked in stature, he made up for in other areas, with stubby fingers, ears too large for his head and a slight potbelly.  _

_ What did they feed the mages in other circles, anyway? _

_ "It's Poncelet, Anders. Senior Enchanter Poncelet."  _

_ "Right. Poncey. So, what brings you by then? And may I say, you're looking especially round tonight!" The urge to snigger at his own jokes was tantalizing, but he silently agreed that it would ruin the moment.  _

_ Poncelet groaned distressfully, before he cleared his throat and actively avoided the bait. "Where is she?" _

_ Still laying on his back and smiling beguilingly, Anders shrugged his shoulders and tried to produce the most convincing expression of bewilderment he could muster. "I'm afraid I don't know who you mean. It's just little old me in here right now." _

_ Fingers and brows twitching, the Enchanter's eyes slid closed for the briefest of moments before his mouth formed an O, and his chest expanded with the expulsion of breath. "Don't be coy, Anders. I heard you talking to someone, and I know you and Surana are friends. So, where is she?" _

_ "Oh, you heard me, did you? Well, you see-" he sat upright, with an excuse primed and balanced on his tongue.  _

_ ~Mrow~ _

_ A small feline, with a glistening black coat and steely eyes, emerged from beneath the bed. The animal flicked the tip of her long, wiry tail and brushed against the mage's thigh seeming otherwise unbothered by the Senior Enchanter's presence. _

_ "I was just talking to this lovely little lady right here." Anders scooped the cat into his arms as he climbed to his feet. "Isn't that right, Mrs. Whiskers? Of course, that's right," he drawled in a voice more appropriate for an infant than an animal. Anders squished her against his chest and buried his face in her fur. _

_ His bulbous nose wrinkled, as Poncelet stared at the mage and feline pair with measured contempt quietly brewing behind cold grey eyes. From his throat escaped a sound that emphasized his revulsion quite distinctly.  _

_ "Sorry, Ponce, my good man. I do hope you find that little scamp." _

_ "Oh, never mind…" he pinched the bridge of said bulb and turned away from them. _

_ "Well, we should be off, I think I smell something delicious in the kitchens." Even now, Anders still contained his wicked amusement, finding such delight in confounding the poor Enchanter. He strode too casually out of the room with hearty chuckles muffled effectively by the body of the cat he clutched fervently.  _

_ He just barely cleared the threshold of the dormitory when a sneeze and pop, followed by a girlish shriek, drew Poncelet's attention. In an unexpected flash, Mrs. Whiskers was replaced by a young elf, garbed in the turquoise robes of apprentice mages. Startled, Anders struggled to maintain his balance with the squirming Nell in his arms.  _

_ It was Ponce's aghast declaration, an accusatory shout in their direction: "Surana! By the Maker - I should have - and YOU," that sent them scrambling down the hall in a fit of hysterical laughter. _

_ "Sorry!" Nell offered half-heartedly as she waved at Poncelet in their hasty retreat. _

_ -Oof-  _

_ The weighty exhalation of air following the impact of bodies meeting mid-stride brought Anders’ head back around quicker than he had intended. He and Surana had been too busy checking over their shoulder for Poncelet to realize they were on a collision course. With Karl. _

_ “Anders, Nell, what are you-” the older mage barely uttered, while trying to keep his bearings amongst the chaos. There was laughter on his lips, in the confused smile unfurling onto his youthful face.  _

_ Anders felt himself grinning wider than before as he adjusted the elf, changing to an under-arm hold on his right side and grabbed hold of Karl without so much as slowing down. “No time to chat, let’s go!” _

_ Karl's bewildered protest ring in his ears. "What? Anders!" _

_ ... _

_ "ders-" _

"Anders?"

…

"Anders, love, wake up."

Karl's voice bled into another, a pleasant. tenor rooted in the present as it embraced him with its warmth. 

In his consciousness, the spectral presence stirred and gently coaxed him to meet it's awareness, to let the dream slip away and focus his mind. 

"Mmn-wha," he muttered, drowsily lifting his head from where it had been resting against the desk. Parchment fluttered away from his face and scattered. Anders tried to ignore the derisive snark (could spirits even snark?) in the back of his thoughts.

"Hey sleepyhead." The voice behind him cooed and he turned to look just as a hand, broad and strong with light callouses marking the bronze palm, brushed away stray hair. It had fallen across his vision, the ponytail loosened from the ribbon, a gleaming and glossy red…

Right. Red. Hawke.

He blinked away the remnants of sleep from his eyes and fixed them on the form before him. Hawke's face came into view, finally. Anders took stock of russet red hair, a gentle smile and eyes bluer than any bottle of lyrium he could whip up.

"-awke," he slurred and chuckled at his own drowsy state.

"While I'm glad you're getting rest, I think a bed would be a little more comfortable, no?"

Groaning, Anders sat up and straightened his back against the rickety wooden chair. His body ached, howled at him even with every move. 

_ You fell asleep. Again. _

Ah, Justice, how perfectly observant.

He ignored the chiding and made the attempt to try himself free from the offending seat. Hawke wasted no time swooping in to lend a hand. "Come on, let's get you home." A kiss to his forehead as he rose to his feet was a balm for his irritable mind in his half awakened state and Anders sighed wistfully.

"Yes, home…"


End file.
